


How Certain the Journey

by freyafrida



Series: come back home [2]
Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 18:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freyafrida/pseuds/freyafrida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deleted scenes and oneshots set in the Come Back Home 'verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. wounded and missing

**Author's Note:**

> Here be drabbles set in the future, stuff filling in the gap between the last chapter and the epilogue, stuff taken out of the original story, etc etc etc! Posted as I write them/polish what's already written.
> 
> Title of the fic is from "Eric's Song" by Vienna Teng (as always), and the chapter title is from _Rilla of Ingleside_ by L.M. Montgomery.

"What does that mean?" Una asks. "'Wounded and missing.'"

They are sitting in Rainbow Valley, at what Walter has come to think of as their place, in the shade of the White Lady. It is spring, and the leaves are sprouting on her branches, delicate and new. Walter wonders if it is painful for them, to stretch and sprout and grow.

It is spring, and Jem is wounded and missing.

They had not cried when the news had come, had sat in shocked silence and then slowly moved to continue the day. For what else could they do? There is no grief, for Jem is not dead (or, at least, they don't know it yet - but no, Walter won't think about that). Only missing.

Walter coughs, not quite sure how to break such information gently. None of his family had asked - "I'd rather not know," Rilla had sighed before hurrying off to throw herself into her duties; Mother and Dad had only murmured that knowing would make no difference; Susan speculates but clings to the stubborn conviction that he is all right, that nothing _that bad_ can happen.

"I don't know," he admits. "He could have just lost his identification - he could be convalescing in a hospital in England right now. With Faith, even."

Una just looks at him. "You don't think so, though, do you?"

Walter pauses, then shrugs. "No. I don't."

Una tucks her legs under her and waits, as she always does.

"If he's missing," Walter says finally, the words coming out staccato, "then he might have been taken prisoner. That happens, you know, in trench raids." He does not wish to admit the other possibility - that if Jem has not, in fact, become a German prisoner, then he must somehow be in no condition to identify himself. Perhaps he is horribly injured, unable to speak or write. Walter had seen men, like that, in the hospital. Some had healed, their speech made mushy and incomprehensible in their rebuilt mouths, scratching out letters like children with trembling hands. Some had not. And perhaps Jem is - well. Walter has already considered that possibility.

Una bends to rest the side of her head on her knees, her face turned to his. She considers him for a moment, then quietly says, "I'm sorry."

Walter nods, feeling a lump in his throat. Jem, missing. Jem, who had - _has_ \- always been so brave and strong. If something were to happen to Jem - if something _more_ were to happen to Jem - and, he, Walter, is the one to survive - well. _That would be terribly ironic_ , he reflects.

He understands, now, how hard it is to wait, what his family and his friends have suffered these past years. If he were still in the trenches, he could fight and - and take vengeance, perhaps, picture every German as the one who took his brother. If he were in the trenches, it would not even matter - he might even envy Jem, to be in a prison camp instead of in battle, to be sleeping under the mud instead of lying awake with frayed nerves and nightmares lying in wait.

Instead, he can only wait, wait and pray foolishly and desperately, every day without word from Jem like scratching at a wound, keeping it open and raw.

"We'll keep faith," Una says gently, taking his hand.

"Keep faith," Walter repeats. It is all they can do.


	2. somewhere my lifeline still hums and sings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based off of the prompt "a succession of ordinary days." Title from "Goodnight New York" by (who else?) Vienna Teng.

Summer passes warm and hazy, and they find their own rhythm, atypical as it may be - it had been simple, Walter guesses, for Jem and Faith, and Nan and Jerry; they never had to fear casualty lists or nighttime terrors. There are times when their happiness feels _wrong_ , in the midst of all this worry and death, or when things _should_ be perfectly wonderful but Jerry hasn't written in weeks and no sweet words or kisses can unfurrow Una's brow.

They figure it out, somehow.

They have so much to learn about each other, still, and the first few weeks are full of discovery. Walter doesn't know how he has gone for ten years without knowing of the softness of her hair between his fingers, of the way she sighs into his mouth, of the two freckles over her collarbone.

"You can't kiss me there," she says with a laugh, the day he finds them, tugging her collar away just enough to reach the sharp curve of bone.

"Too late," he says, smiling against her skin for a moment before letting her go, and she traces the scars on his neck with her hands and her mouth, the promise of _soon, soon_ thrumming between them.

* * *

"Oh," Una says one day, when he leans into her and she falls back against the White Lady, their bodies pressed together. In the summer they don't wear quite as many layers, and he can feel her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest against his own.

He pulls back, just a bit, to restore some semblance of propriety between them - he supposes it doesn't really matter, not in the valley far from the road - but then, he has spent so long fighting and surviving that perhaps he wants to feel proper, like a man, even where no one can see.

They simply sit, for a while, leaning against each other, Una's fingers carding through his hair.

"Where did you get this?" she asks gently, her fingers brushing against a scar at his temple.

Walter smiles against her neck. "Fell out of the apple tree at Green Gables when I was nine."

"Oh," she says again.

"Dad was furious," he says, the memory resurfacing. "I think, later, he was just scared. But he yelled for what seemed like hours."

Una gives a little laugh; he feels it more than hears it. Then she sighs, and he feels that, too.

"I don't think I've ever done such a thing," she says. "Jerry and Faith and Carl, though…"

"You're so different from them," Walter muses. He knows, of course, that not all siblings are the same - his own family is proof of that - but the other three Meredith siblings are so similar in their energy, their frankness. Una, by contrast, is remarkably quiet and soft. "I think you would've liked climbing trees, though."

"I was always afraid I was going to fall," she says.

"That part is frightening," he admits. "But when you don't - when you sit at the top and see the world below you - I think you would've liked that. And," he adds, finding her hand and lacing his fingers through hers, "I would have climbed with you."

He feels her turn and press her mouth against his hair for a moment, before she shifts back and leans on him. It can only be a passing fancy, bound as they are these days to the earth and green grass.

"I like it here, though," Una says. "Where we are now."

Walter does, too.

* * *

The second Tuesday in July, Rilla and Miss Oliver end up only _somewhat_ rudely inserting themselves into one of their trysts, but Walter cannot bring himself to mind much. It's true that he and Una have a tendency to disappear, lately, in a way that makes Miss Cornelia raise her eyebrows at Mother when she thinks Walter isn't looking.

Rilla is talking animatedly about Jims, while Miss Oliver groans and sighs over another of her premonitions. The Russians have or have not done something or another, and it will all end _quite badly_ , in Miss Oliver's opinion. Rilla frowns at the dark cloud overhanging her nineteenth birthday.

 _Poor kid_ , Walter thinks. He remembers nineteen - carefree, wonderful nineteen, with a whole life ahead of him, a world he had wanted to run towards with his arms wide. Never thinking, never expecting, that things would turn out like this.

The war can't last forever. He tells himself this, every day. And no matter what comes, he has survived - can continue to survive. And he is not alone, not anymore.

He feels Una rest her head on his shoulder, and when he turns to look, he finds her making a face at him, in response to Rilla and Miss Oliver's dramatics. Walter laughs, a little surprised - Una has never been one to make faces. He is glad to see it though, glad that she trusts him with this part of her. He laughs and so does she.

They figure it out, somehow, and it is all right.


End file.
